Stockwell v. Township Board of White Lake

• Decision Date: 05 April 1871
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: Levi F. Stockwell v. The Township Board of White Lake

22 Mich. 341

Levi F. Stockwell v. The Township Board of White Lake

Supreme Court of Michigan

April 5, 1871

Heard January 9, 1871

Certiorari. To the township board of White Lake to review the proceedings for the removal of Levi F. Stockwell from office as moderator of school district number four of the township of White Lake.

Judgment of the board quashed, and the plaintiff in error recovered his costs.

W. B Jackson and A. C. Baldwin, for plaintiff in error.

Crofoot & Brewer, for defendants in error.

OPINION

Graves, J.

The writ in this case brings before us the proceedings by the township board of White Lake, for the removal of the plaintiff in error from the office of moderator of school district number four in that township. It appears by the record that sundry proceedings had occurred in the district, relating to the building of a new school-house, and which were at length claimed by some, and denied by others, to have resulted in a valid resolution to erect the house. A resolution was entered upon the records appointing the director, William B. Stockwell, and a Mr. Worden, a building committee; and those persons, as such committee, entered into a contract with Charles Porter to put up the house, and with Mr. Burwell to make the foundation wall. Subsequently, and on the 29th of July, 1870, William B. Stockwell, as director, drew two orders upon the assessor of the district, a Mr. Armsby, who then had the money--one of which called for the present payment of one hundred dollars to Charles Porter, and the other for the like payment of fifteen dollars to Mr. Burwell, out of the building fund. The plaintiff in error being at this time the moderator of the district, the orders in question were, on the day of their date, presented to him to be countersigned by the director, in order that Porter and Burwell might immediately draw the money. But the plaintiff in error, denying the right of Porter and Burwell to the money, refused to countersign the orders.

Mr. Porter, the contractor and payee in the large order, being clerk of the township of White Lake, the building committee man and director, William B. Stockwell, who drew the orders, filed with Porter, on the 8th of August, a complaint to the township board against the plaintiff in error, for persistently refusing and neglecting, without sufficient cause, to discharge the duties of his office. The complaint set forth the refusal to countersign the orders to Porter and Burwell as the breach of duty complained of, and prayed that the board would remove the plaintiff in error from his office of moderator for such delinquency. Porter, as township clerk, thereupon notified the plaintiff in error that the township board would meet at his office on the 10th of August, "to hear said complaint, and to take proofs and determine the charges therein mentioned." The board met at the time specified, at the office of Porter, but was then found to consist, as it did throughout the entire proceedings, of but three sitting members, of whom Mr. Porter was one. The plaintiff in error seasonably and distinctly objected that Mr. Porter was not qualified to sit in that case; but the objection was overruled, and the board so constituted, of Porter and two others, heard the proofs and allegations, and determined in effect that the plaintiff in error, as moderator of the district, in refusing to sanction the payment at the time to Porter and Burwell, had persistently refused and neglected, without sufficient cause, to discharge his duty, and should be removed from his office in consequence.

The validity of this proceeding by the board is assailed on several grounds. The plaintiff in error contends--first, that Porter was incompetent to act as a member of the board upon the trial of the matter involved in the complaint; and, second, that the judgment of amotion was not warranted by the facts. The ground of objection first mentioned is naturally in order to be first considered, since, if it be well founded, it is necessarily fatal to the action of the board, whether the judgment of removal in the abstract was correct or otherwise upon the evidence. On referring to the record, it appears that in all the proceedings before the board the alleged delinquency of the moderator was founded upon his disapproval of the payment of the two orders, and that the judgment of amotion was rested upon the evidence of breach of duty supposed to be furnished by the double refusal. The judgment being single, and grounded upon the two facts as explained by other evidence, we are not at liberty to assume that either of these facts, with its concomitant circumstances, was deemed unessential to the result; and, therefore, if Porter was disqualified from sitting to try the charge as it stood upon the refusal to sanction his order, it was fatal to the judgment, though it be admitted that he was a lawful trier on the other specification.

Under these circumstances we may dispense with any special reference to the refusal to countersign the Burwell order, and for the purpose of the present point proceed to examine the case as though the refusal to assent to the Porter order was the only overt act set forth. The validity of the maxim, that no one can be a judge in his own cause, is not controverted, nor, indeed, can be. It is among the first objects of civil government to deprive persons of the power to adjudge finally for themselves, and conclusively assert their own causes; and so fundamental is this rule of justice--so essential to the order, peace, and even stability of government--that however broad the terms of a grant of judicial power may be, this principle remains operative, and gives rise to a tacit exception from the general words of the grant: The Peninsular Railway Co. v. Howard, 20 Mich. 18.

The principle has found express recognition in our statute, which declares that "no judge of any court can sit as such in any cause in which he is a party, or in which he is interested" (§ 4064 Comp. L.), and although the board may not be considered as having technically constituted a court within the meaning of this act, the principle itself, which derives no aid from legislation, extends beyond the words of the statute, and asserts itself wherever judicial powers are employed by a body appointed by law. The members of the board in this case, when acting on the complaint of the director, were proceeding judicially, and exercising some of the most important functions peculiar to a court.

They were sitting to hear the altercations and evidence of opposing parties in a real controversy, by authority of law and were required to decide finally the issues involved in that controversy. Being in the exercise of judicial functions, under such authority, they were as completely subject to the principle alluded to as though they had formed a court in full legal sense. The defendants in error do not controvert this position, but rest their objections to the operation of the rule in this case upon other grounds. They insist, in the first place, that Porter, the member of the board objected to, was neither a party nor interested, and, in the second place, that his participation was necessary in order to form a quorum. Now, it is quite true that Porter was not a nominal party to these proceedings, but that circumstance is not decisive, since the rule is not confined to cases where the person is both judge and party. The principle in question reaches far beyond the forms which envelop the litigation, and applies to the elements and substance of the controversy, and in general, where the case is of such a nature as to make it necessary, in its course or final issue, for the trier to pass upon his own implicated rights or interests, the rule attaches and unseats him. The exceptions made by some authorities, of cases referred to interested umpires by agreement of parties, and of cases where formal judgments are given by interested judges, as necessary steps to secure the action of other courts, do not require to be noticed, since the case before us is not within them. In proceeding to ascertain whether Porter was interested in the case before the board, it is proper to bring into view the nature of the issue which was then to...